VAR coming to NWSL/ What to expect

Why do you gather that? Or, maybe, how do you define "intrusive?"

This isn't the first time someone has asserted something like this. And I'm always a bit baffled. The issue, by and large, with EPL is that it's not involved enough. Outside the very close offside decisions, almost every complaint about VAR in England is "how was that not a penalty?" or "how did he get away without a red card there?" There are a couple outlier cases where an APP foul got called or a very strict interpretation of handball was applied but those are definitely outliers.

VARing in MLS is very active. To the extent it's "less intrusive" it's only because technology is not used for offside, so there is (or is supposed to be) a decently wide latitude of what subjectively constitutes "clearly wrong" on offside decisions, which means no interventions for "toenail" offside decisions. But for penalty and red card decisions it's probably one of the more "active" VAR leagues in the world. But it's also one of the more consistent leagues in the world because the dedicated training around VARing has been very serious from the get-go. There are mistakes still--or what PRO views as mistakes, based on the threshold it has established internally--but by and large you have a very good accuracy rate on interventions and VAR is used to call a decent amount of penalties and red cards that are missed.

NWSL VARs will be trained by PRO, so expect the same bar. That said, there are a number of variables:

1) Who will be the VARs? Will you see.a lot of people who also do MLS regularly or will it be more of the greener VARs in that league and some brand new ones? Comfort with VARing takes time and practice. There will be hiccups on that end the more novice VARs are used.

2) Perhaps more importantly, how comfortable are the on-field officials with using VAR? This is a huge one. Outside a couple names who have limited experience, most of the on-field NWSL referees will have no live game experience with VAR. Understanding how it changes how you officiate will take time.

3) How will players react? Let's be honest and clear here--women's professional players have seen a different standard of officiating for most of their career (including in college). They have become accustomed to getting away with certain things, including around dissent and reaction to referee decisions. And they are also not accustomed to VAR in general. The idea that VAR could change major decisions against them (while some decisions they don't like have to go unchanged) could (and likely will) lead to MORE frustration in the short-term rather than less. I've always laughed when I've heard certain players and coaches say the introduction of VAR will solve some on-field issues. I have little doubt it will make them worse, at least in the short-term.

4) And then there's all the technical issues alluded to above. How many angles are available and what are the venue requirements. VAR is only as good as the personnel and the technology. If we have six camera angles for some matches, some things that might otherwise be clear won't be so clear.

1 and 4 are probably answerable right now to some extent--I just don't know what those answers are. 2 and 3 are two huge variables. You're layering in a totally new way of officiating the sport without much practice at all for the players or referees. There have been hiccups in every league that's done it. NWSL will be no different. Will it be worse? Could be. PRO's training and VAR personnel would argue against it being worse. But past behavior and officiating in NWSL could argue in the other direction. We shall see.

 

Having been privvy to some of the VARing in preseason games, I will now revise my assessment.

First, the personnel is new; unless there's a change of heart when first regular season assignments are made, there seems to be no crossover with MLS VARs. Second, unless the standards are simply better and uniform for regular season matches, the angles are limited. And third--while admitting it is a small sample size--the personnel do NOT seem comfortable with VARing at all yet (though there was one very good preseason intervention, so it's not across the board); there have been a couple massive mistakes already in the Angel City-Club America match.

It's a small sample size, but thus far (and when you layer in expected player/coach reactions) I believe things will be pretty bad with VAR out of the gate in NWSL. I, of course, hope I'm wrong.

 

So...

I am reliably told that, despite preseason assignments, some regular season assignments at the outset will use MLS VARs. I guess that makes sense. Use the preseason to allow new personnel to practice. But, pursuant with my post above, it is apparent that the new personnel needs a lot of practice.

 

I don't think that's a sign of anything at all. First, it was called on the field. Second, I think, if seen correctly, that's called in every league everywhere--the idea that's not called in the EPL seems far-fetched; the recent controversial EPL decisions have all had some argument for a mitigating or strange factor--there's none here.

I'm not a professional lipreader, but I'm fairly confident she says "what am/was I supposed to do?"

 

Yes, but/and...

Now we are talking about stuff that's never given in the EPL. APP fouls for cancelling goals are rare to begin with and the threshold is high. In this case, the referee is literally right there and has a clean look at it. To an extent, I'm with you that there is a "clear tripping foul" (more on that below--maybe my quibble is with "clear"), but where's the line between "clear and obvious error" and "re-refereeing?" I'd even say at the FIFA tournament level, APP fouls have a high threshold. So I have some doubts about this one.

Looking at even this video, you can see that the Angel City player sees the Gotham player approaching (she turns her head to look right at her) and steps in front of her before the ball arrives. She puts her leg in between the ball and her opponent before touching the ball. There's then contact and the Gotham player goes down. Where is the line between "carelessly trips" and "shields within playing distance?" Because there is some subjectivity there. And, obviously, in real-time the referee thought the latter. So how blatant does a trip need to be to change that judgment? I am somewhat confident I'd call this in real-time. But, once I didn't, I probably could rationalize that the attacker has made a fair play to shield an opponent--it seems close enough to me that I can argue it in my own head. Put it this way: if both players collapsed to the ground after this collision, which way are you pointing for the ensuing free kick?

I'd then add two things. First, literally no one was looking for this, right? That can't be a decisive factor on an intervention, but it does go to some of my earlier points/allusions about how players were going to get stuff they didn't expect. If a referee decision is so accepted on the field that no one even thought it was questionable, well, I'd argue the intervention threshold (particularly for an APP foul) needs to be a little higher than normal. Second, 14:45 foul to 17:45 annulment decision is not fast enough to instill confidence in the "clear and obvious" standard. Granted, that sort of time is consistent with what we saw early in MLS (and with some of the more controversial/difficult decisions now) but it's worth pointing out this fact if we're judging efficiency in NWSL against a gold standard. This is a simple foul. If it's so abundantly clear that it merits annulling a goal, it shouldn't take three minutes to sort out.

 

So the penalty called in this match via VAR ended up with three yellow cards to the same team? One for dissent, one for marking up the spot and one for the initial foul (DOGSO-yellow). Huh.

 

At this point @kolabear, I can't even follow your arguments (and videos) so have no idea how to reply. Half the time or so you seem to genuinely want analysis and input, the rest of the time it's... let's just say unclear what you're getting at.

If you want an NWSL thread specifically on VAR, it's here. You have it. I'm not sure what comparisons to the EPL and Bundesliga are getting you or anyone else. Particularly when you seem to be revisiting incidents from the EPL that a lot of us already disagreed with when they occurred. Or when you're using one pundit--Grafe--to speak for the entire Bundesliga. Sure, on a grand level once there's a real track record in NWSL, maybe it will be interesting (I highly doubt it, but maybe); after all, we compare MLS to EPL sometimes here. But that's still ancillary to the actual discussions about officiating in those leagues (and other competitions).

As to the actual officiating in NWSL, two points since I last posted here...

1) Of course that's a penalty and yellow card in San Diego. Perfect use of VAR there.

2) I would note, for anyone not accustomed to how deliberately PRO chooses its language, that Barkey simply stated the VAR recommended a review for the foul and the referee agreed it was a foul. Barkey never said this was the correct call, in the way he did relative to the penalty later in the same match. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean PRO came down on the VAR and Referee for a "bad review" or however you want to phrase it. But reading between the lines I think you can conclude PRO would have preferred there was not an intervention there.